The Problem: This study was designed to analyze the evaluation criteria of the
instruments used to evaluate superintendents, the job descriptions for those superintendents, and
the goals written as part of their Individual Administrator Professional Development Plans
(IAPDPs) to determine whether superintendents are being held accountable for serving as
instructional leaders.
Procedure: The job descriptions, evaluation instruments, and goals contained in IAPDPs
provided by superintendents were coded using content analysis to identify those that describe
instructional leadership as part of Standard 2 of the Iowa Standards for School Leaders (ISSL).
The criteria were disaggregated and further sorted by district size. An analysis was conducted
from the sampling units representing 20 of the 86 eligible superintendents in certain school
districts with large high school enrollments, indicated by their membership in Class 3A or 4A for
football during the 2009–2010 school year. Of the 20 randomly selected superintendents, 18
provided the three documents to be analyzed. A total of 52 sampling units were analyzed as part
of this study.
Findings: There was little congruence between the job descriptions and the criteria
associated with instructional leadership in Standard 2. Only 17% of the 518 recording units were
coded as Standard 2 in the ISSL. Additionally, there was little congruence between the goals
written in IAPDP and the criteria in Standard 2 of the ISSL. Of the 87 recording units, only 25%
were coded as Standard 2 in the ISSL. The size of the school district made little difference
related to Standard 2 criteria in the sampling units. Of the 18 districts reporting, 15 (83%) have
implemented the ISSL standards as part of their evaluation criteria. There were nearly twice as
many recording units (29%) from the evaluation instruments coded to Standard 2 than there were
in the job descriptions (17%), so it was determined that the instruments were not congruent with
one another.